


Sandalwood

by PumpkinWrites



Category: RWBY
Genre: Gen, Paying Respects, visiting graves
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-01-22
Updated: 2019-01-22
Packaged: 2019-10-14 06:18:16
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,023
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17503241
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/PumpkinWrites/pseuds/PumpkinWrites
Summary: It was sunrise when he finally reached dusty red stone, and the first thing he noticed was that the flowers in front of it had decayed a while ago. He recognized the gold ribbon bundling them together:  they were the tiger lilies he'd brought the last time he'd come to visit."... no one's come to visit you, have they? That's a shame. I hate to think of you being lonely out here. You did so much for our people, I thought you'd have crowds visiting you every day. At least you still have me."Adam visits Sienna's grave.





	Sandalwood

It was sunrise when he finally reached dusty red stone, and the first thing he noticed was that the flowers in front of it had decayed a while ago. He recognized the gold ribbon bundling them together: they were the tiger lilies he'd brought the last time he'd come to visit. Despite the fact that it had _clearly_ been some time since anyone had been here, there weren't many weeds yet to pull. He did clear away the ones that _had_ sprouted around the stone, tossing them to the side and brushing away the dirt that had dropped onto the stone from the weeding. He grabbed the long-dead tiger lilies and threw them away as well.

Adam sighed, taking the spent remnants of incense sticks out of their holder and replacing them with fresh ones. He unsheathed his sword, striking a burn dust crystal against the blade to produce a spark to light them. He replaced his weapon and blew out the flame after a moment to set them smoldering. He sat down in front of the stone, placing Wilt and Blush to the side, and reached to place the flowers he'd obtained at the base of the incense holder. He reached up, taking off his mask and setting it aside with his weapon. His scarred eye twitched against the brightness of the world outside of its covering, but adjusted soon enough.

He sat in silence for a long while, letting the rich, sweet, woody smell of the incense smoke wash over him. Sandalwood. It was one of her favorites. She'd burned it all the time when he was younger, so much that it seemed to have become a permanent part of her: it had worked its way into her clothes. Adam watched the smoke curl into swirls and tendrils, picked out, in his mind, fleeting glimpses of phantom images in the smoke before they disappeared. Both of his eyes tracked over the stone in front of him, from the incense to the bundle of wildflowers placed beneath the holder, to the rough inscription of the epitaph beneath her name.

  
_Unify Our People with no compromise_

_Lead Them to salvation and regain Our lives_

He honestly wished that he could have done a better job of that. But his handwriting was never that good, and stone was just such a hard thing to cut into. He'd managed it, of course, thought it wasn't perfect. But it was something. It was her name, engraved clearly over where she rested, so that she could be visited. And so that proper respects could be paid to the one who had given so much for her people. She wouldn't be left to decay in an unmarked grave where no one would ever find her. 

"... no one's come to visit you, have they? That's a shame. I hate to think of you being lonely out here. You did so much for our people, I thought you'd have crowds visiting you every day. I told them to give you a proper burial, not hide you away from everyone and forget about you."

She didn't deserve that. Just because she was _no longer_ the best choice to lead them didn't mean that she had _never_ been. She had shown him the way to get what the White Fang so desperately wanted, the respect that they, that the Faunus as a whole, deserved, and had for so long been unjustly denied. She had taught him that the only way to do that was to fight back, not stand several feet away from the problem and just _glare_ at it. She had shown strength and unwavering conviction to their cause. Without her, where would their people be now? Where would _he_ be now? Sienna didn't deserve to be forgotten like so many others. She had died for a good reason, and she been given a proper burial, not executed in the street and thrown in a gutter to rot, or left to die after being crushed in a Schnee mine collapse.

"... at least you still have me."

Adam shook his head, clenching his fists in his lap. He had known that Sienna was too willful to follow beneath someone again. But she was reasonable. If she had just listened to him, had just tried to understand that what he was doing was the best thing for the Faunus, she wouldn't have had to die.

"... I didn't want to have to do this, you know. I thought you would understand. And what really hurts me is that you didn't. But, you taught me to do what was best for the Faunus, and I _was_. And I still _am._ I'm just sorry you couldn't see that."

And everyone had agreed with him. They, like him, and like Sienna, wanted humanity to feel what they'd inflicted on the Faunus for years. Humanity needed to pay for what they had done. Murder, oppression, discrimination, disfigurement. He knew far too many others who had been scarred, mentally or physically, by human mistreatment. Even Sienna's own scarred right forearm, and her inability to fully use two of the fingers on that hand, had been a result of human violence. And failing that, his face alone was proof enough of what lengths humans would go to in order to keep Faunus under their control.

And yet, there were still Faunus like the Belladonnas, who would still say that even those humans didn't deserve to die.

"... the traitors survived the altercation at Haven. I won't let them get away with what they've done: you didn't tolerate treason, and neither will I. And I can't focus knowing that she's out there betraying... betraying her kind like this. I'm going to finish what I started at Beacon, and then I'll be back to lead our people to victory."

He reached to pick up his belongings before finally rising to his feet. He hooked his weapons back to their clip on his belt and replaced his mask on his face. Before he left, he placed one gloved hand atop the grave marker, and spoke quietly one final time.

"I'll see you soon, Sienna."


End file.
